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A Girl's Best Friend
Blind Carla and her best friend Belle the dog meet Old Greta who everyone says is a witch, that night Belle runs outside and visits Greta and the next morning Carla’s sight is restored, as Belle has given hers up.
A Spell Of Trouble
Queen Senga is tired of everyone saying she is too young so banishes all old women from city to starve, and demands potion to make herself older, but drinks too much and becomes old crone and is kicked out of city to be eaten by wolves (in image).
A Stain On Her Character
Alison cheats in exams because she can’t write fast enough, ghostly teacher appears and gives her pen that allows her to write faster but she still cheats, pen leaks and she is warned, nib breaks and she ends up covered with ink that will not wash off (‘Alison’s school enjoyed a 300 year old reputation of character-building … and its founder, although long dead, would never allow that reputation to be tarnished by a cheat’).
Dance Of Death
Starving fiddler and his daughter made to play and dance for supper at inn and then kicked out where they freeze to death. Inn becomes haunted by their spirits and nobody will drink there and unable to sell it with the two ‘in permanent residence’.
Examination Nerves
Sheila has a nightmare about a German interrogation, puts it down to worries about her O Levels which she passes and goes to Germany that summer to work as an au pair. Struggles to find the house and when she arrives is so tired she falls asleep, wakes up to find police there and a body being carried out, interrogation scene identical to the nightmare she had.
Framed
Thief Kate breaks into house, pulls a knife on a man and steals his cubist style painting. Has a dream she enters it and then starts to see everything distorted as in painting – decides to return it to police but even after world goes back to normal and she has learnt her lesson (‘I’m not getting into any more trouble. I’ve had enough!’) she is stuck looking distorted (uses medium, hidden throughout last page until final panel mirror ‘That can’t be me…? … But it was!’)
Green Grow The Riches - O!
‘Poison’ Ivy uses and steals from her friend Coral, mysterious veiled lady offers her unlimited wealth but (back page) reveals she is ‘Green for envy, green for danger, green grow the riches-o’ and Ivy takes her place having turned green
Happy Birthday, Spooky Sue!
Jenny and 13 classmates invited to her party, Sue blows out candles one by one and they each vanish in puff of smoke except Jenny who was the only one who was nice to her - is allowed to leave and given the last candle 'it will stay alight forever' - narrated by Jenny.
Inside Story
Rewriting of Pandora (revealed at the end) she hears voices telling her to ‘help ussss’ (black background panels showing spirits) that trick her into opening the box ‘Mythology tells us that when Pandora released the sickness and plague and evil and greed into the world, it was her curiosity that was to blame… but now you know – the inside story!’
Miranda
Miranda is a beggar girl selling trinkets to ward off curses, those who decline get dead animals, she is arrested but courthouse falls down before she can be tried, so judged a witch but when tied to the stake it begins to rain and has not stopped since and narrator concludes she was a witch after all
Mrs Grundy's Guest House
Pickpocket Jilly spends day stealing from OAPs and then tries to find a B&B for evening with no luck, breaks into Mrs Grundy’s (always empty though Mrs G says it is full) and then says she wants to stay when discovered, while trying to steal ornaments ghosts appear and say she must be punished, they hold her and her struggles knock curtain into fire and burn down house with her in it ‘burned alive’ ‘You’re a wicked gill, Jilly Sloper. You came here to rob me. And now you’ve burned down the only refuge these poor lost souls have ever had. I don’t think anything would make them let you go now.’ ‘In the ruins of the old house one remained .. doomed to stay there forever!’
Napoleon Comes Home...
Amy’s dog dies and she is distraught but then begins to see him and play with him again, parents are worried and don’t believe her (despite seeing paw prints on floor and indent in her bed) and then one night see and hear him barking in garden to warn them house is on fire and he drags her father out (‘Who can say what they saw through all that smoke in the darkness? They could be sure of only one thing… he was safe.’)
One Hour In Time
Horrible Laura is a model and trets everyone like dirt, pushes over an old woman selling beads who puts a curse on her (‘You stupid old hag […] let her grovel in the dirt where she belongs’), Laura thinks it has not worked but has forgotten that she didn’t need to set her watch back as on British Summertime – curse works and she ages, withers and dies in final panel.
Pot Luck
Gloria inherits cauldron and discovers it is evil - anything put in it creates monster - ends with snowflake drifting in 'The End?' - odd as undeserved
Red Knee - White Terror!
Andrea buys bananas from market with poisonous spider while hearing news report on radio, lots of panels showing spider on her without her realising (so reader knows more), it attacks her in bath but is just her brother’s toy trick (exploiting medium), final panel she relaxes and hand dangles down – as real spider approaches!
Smile
Gail finds instant camera and uses it to take pictures but each one makes people vanish – ‘evil’ - she smashes it when it runs out of film and everyone reappears ‘next time anyone has a party let’s just enjoy ourselves without photographs – okay?’
Sticks And Stones
Gossip columnist Joan uses crossed lines to overhear about scientist’s assumed affair with ‘Gert’, and prints story which distresses his daughter Marilyn - turns out that this is a machine he has invented to cure sick wife, and Joan is crushed by her books of names.
Stone Cold Revenge
Leslie is angry because her father spent his bonus on garden gnomes rather than the record player she wanted and so kicks one and breaks it. Tricks start happening with others which she gets blamed for, and then when her parents are out an army of them attack her and leave her catatonic. Unreassuring final panel of gnome in dark garden.
The Choice Of Silence
Deaf Amy makes bargain to free evil Egyptian mummy but then changes mind and burns him – ends with her deaf but no longer sad, feels ‘a small flame of pride’.
The Curse Of The Wolf
Myra and Edith on hiking holiday, ignore villagers’ warnings and set up camp, realise shopkeeper is a werewolf and seek help but turns out curse has spread and villagers barricade themselves in as they are all werewolves ‘you should have left while you had the chance. Now ... you will stay here forever!’
The Disembodied
Olivia sees old book on display on class trip and rips a page of black spells out of it, realises that night she can read it an summons up spirits of three teachers to give her all the test answers, but she gets greedy and keeps them too long past dawn. Discovers at breakfast that teachers have died because of this and has left the spirits disembodied and they continue to haunt her giving her more answers until head full to bursting (jagged panels, scary ghosts).
The Dummy
Bertie the dummy introduces tale (‘Hello, boys and girls’) with jokes (‘I’ve a kind face. ‘What kind’, did I hear you say? Well it was the wrong kind for Rhoda…’ and tells her story – father thinks more of his dummies than of her so she wishes on lucky rabbit’s foot that Beattie (fairy in his act, tricks us into thinking is real at first) gives her, ‘I wish Dad loved me as much as he does Bertie and Samantha’, and is transformed into a dummy, but this proves to be a nightmare and when she wakes he comes in to say he’s realised he doesn’t spend enough time with her (had same nightmare) and they go out to spend day together while Bertie winks at us
The Haunting
Val and Fi hiding in old grounds from Alice who is a pain, then Bess jumps out and scares them and says she can show them round sometime, they decide to scare Alice out of wanting to join their gang by daring her to spend an hour at old house and scaring her while she is there, Bess reappears and they explain their plan and leave Alice in a room, when Bess reveals she is the ghost (lots of shadows, standing in mid-air) and they run screaming as she reaches out for Alice.
The Pig People
Lorina wants to be beautiful and smart like Pearl and admires her amulet which has come from an ancient cult ‘The Worshippers of the Pig’, steals it and everything starts going right (‘she found she was making the scene at the local disco’) but Pearl sees amulet and warns it has terrible power, Lorina wishes no more gym and gym burns down so she resolves to give it back after one more wish to be beautiful – when she wakes up in morning she has been made beautiful but like a pig (good use of colour and medium, her back to us for final page).
The Sad Eyes Of Sorrow
Frankenstein's monster in a freak show, reveal at end that this is his real face and wears human mask.
The Secret Of Lan-Shi...
Petra buys her brother Paul a broken mechanical lion from junk shop which he fixes despite note about its roar and claws, (Petra saves spider from death in her atlas), lion scares dog and then warning on radio about dead animals in safari park (fear lion attack), and lion attacks Petra and family, destroying everything in its way then stops dead and spider web has gummed up the works.
The Swarm (a)
Tamsin's dad comes home from his job in middle east and brings a locust as a present from his boss but it escapes and gets bigger and soon there is a swarm, they try and get to plane to spray the crops but locusts fly at the car to stop them and pursue them into a church, until it starts to rain and they scatter, Dad claims it is a miracle and they realise it is St Swithun's Day.
The Uglies
Vain Mandy wins another beauty pageant and gloats, when walking out that evening comes across and ugly pageant, they tell her people can be beautiful on inside and she agrees to change her ways and leave, but then they reveal ‘you can’t go’ and that they are ‘even uglier’ on the inside ‘And Mandy screamed again, long and lingering, but no-one heard, no-one at all!’
The Writing On The Wall
Selfish Karen ruins her wallpaper drawing on it after she sees a creepy man outside painting ‘the writing’s on the wall’ – steals new paper with slogans on it from market stall and leaves her dad to put it up – when she wakes the next morning she is covered with the same writing ‘It won’t wash off…!’ ‘Of course it won’t, Karen – but you've lived such a selfish life you couldn’t see the writing on the wall!’
Time To Spare
Margo never has time to help her mum, or to help old guy across the road when she wants to meet friends at the beach, he decides to teach her a lesson and traps her in glass bottle ‘Scream all you want, my pretty. There is no-one to hear you. Now you have time, nothing but time, until I choose to release you … / And who can say when I will have enough time to spare for that…?’
Titch's Tale...
Titch is teased for being small, goes up to hill to fly kites with others one day and they all start to vanish, pulled up into air, revealed aliens are fishing but she is so small they throw her back.
...Yet Another Teacher For Molly!
Conman jack applies for tutor job but when he gets there turns out they are vampires?/cannibals? and he is the main course.